Continuing with Ashleigh’s and my Georgia trip in July, 2006… It soon became apparent to us that it was not the wisest of moves to take the pre-convention trip on Monday, July 10. If you remember, we had left Plains on Sunday afternoon, drove to Warm Springs, and then made the lengthy jaunt across Georgia to Augusta…only to get up early the next morning to get on a bus and drive all the way back to Plains!
Yes, you heard correctly. The convention pre-trip on Monday was the Sam Shortline railroad excursion from Georgia Veterans State Park (just a few miles west of Cordele) to Americus and then to Plains. I originally thought that the train ride was the bulk of our trip - but I was wrong. We ended up on a bus for four hours before we even got to the train.
We did enjoy the 25-mile train ride to Americus where we unboarded the train to tour the local restored Rylander Theater (seen at right) and watch two Laurel and Hardy shorts (unfortunately via video projector). We then reboarded the train and travelled an additional eight miles to Plains. Since I had spent so much time seeing Plains (below) at this point, and since I had thus far been spoiled by actually seeing and meeting Jimmy Carter each time, this was less than exciting. Basically all we did was have lunch.
We then reboarded the train for the 30+ mile trip back to the State Park, before reboarding the bus for another cross-state trek back to Augusta. Okay, so like I said this excursion wasn’t the wisest choice. But Ashleigh and I did manage to have a plenty of fun snapping photos of sleeping passengers on the bus trips. Our trip continues…
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